Unknown Encounter
by con14
Summary: Hiccup is a seemingly ordinary High school outcast and computer whiz, however his life takes a drastic turn when he receives a strange message. What will happen to Hiccup when the Government starts asking questions, or if he manages to find out who...or what sent the message. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

_Air Force Space Command-Peterson Air Force Base-Colorado-0700 hours_

Even at the earlier hours of the day, the control center of Peterson Air Force Base was busy with many people monitoring satellite transmissions, scanning through countless lines of data all in the name security. One of the technicians, a young African-American man was watching is monitor as though everything were normal, but then his monitor started to flicker, distorting the content.

"What the?" He quietly asked himself.

He looked closer at screen while trying to fix the problem, but then the screen started to become more distorted until it just went totally black, after a few seconds something else came on the screen, and it was nothing he recognized.

"Ma'am, I think you need to see this." He called to his superior officer.

In a few seconds later an older red-headed woman came over to the screen and saw what he was looking at, and to say she was confused would be an understatement.

"What am I looking at?" She asked.

"I'm not sure ma'am." He replied.

One the screen, what replaced the satellite data was something completely different, what they saw were lines of code except the text or whatever they could call it were colored bright orange, and the texts itself was not English, or any other kind of language they could think of. Instead the data was written in some form of unknown dialect with completely unrecognizable symbols. The message itself continued the pour onto the monitor, it was separated into four different lines, with every other line going up and the others going down, everything about it was strange.

"What do you think it is ma'am?" The technician asked.

"I'm not sure, but I'm not waiting around to find out, get Washington on the phone." She ordered to one of the other technicians.

 _Central Intelligence Agency-Langley, Virginia-1100 hours_

Within the halls of the Central Intelligence Agency, a man walked at a brisk pace, the man was about 5'11", he wore a pressed black suit and red tie, he was an older man of about 50 as shown by his graying hair and wrinkles, he wore and pair of thin glasses and despite his age he appeared well fit. The man walked down the hall until he came to a young man holding a tablet, when he passed the young man followed.

"What's the situation?" He asked.

"At three hours ago AFSC received an unknown signal that intercepted with the frequency of one of their satellite." He reported looking at the tablet.

"What do we know about it now?" He asked

"Nothing yet sir, we have our programmers trying to find that out." The young man said.

"Let's hope they can, some unknown signal breaching a secure network is something I'm concerned about." The older man stated.

Both men arrived at a door that was locked, the older man, taking out an identification card swiped it on the door lock which made it open. Entering the room they saw many programmers starring at computers with some of them walking around to check others as well as look at screens on the wall, all of which display the mysterious message. When the two men entered many of them stopped what they were doing to look at them.

"Anything so far?" the older man asked.

One of the programmers, a young man mostly in his early twenties, stood up, he wore a green collared shirt with khaki pants, he had tan skin and short black hair, and he wore a pair of glasses. The programmer walked over to the older man and looked nervous, like he just found his mother had found a collection of playboy magazines under his bed.

"Well sir we've checked the signal and to be honest, we're not sure what we're looking at." He said.

"Well…what was your name?" The older man asked.

"Uh Bradley sir." He said.

"Well Bradley is there anything you can tell me?" He asked.

"Not much sir, the signal itself somehow managed to integrate itself into the Air Force's satellite frequency, but we're not sure how it did." Bradley explained.

"Do you know where it came from?" The man asked.

"No sir, we've tried run a trace on the signal, but for some reason we can't seem to find its point of origin, it's like it just appeared." Bradley said.

"So you're telling me that this signal just appeared out of nowhere and managed to somehow find its way on a secure Air Force Network." The older man said.

"Unfortunately that seems about it sir." Bradley said.

"Can you at least find out what this signal is saying?" He asked.

"We're doing everything we can sir, but this is like nothing we've ever seen before, plus not to mention…" Bradley started to say but started to trail off, as though he was trying to avoid saying the rest.

"What is it Bradley?" The older man asked.

"Well you see sir, it seems though the message is…'incomplete'." Bradley said.

"Incomplete, what do you mean incomplete?" He asked in confusion.

"What I mean sir is that the signal that the Air Force intercepted was not the whole message, just part of it." Bradley explained.

"How can that be?" The younger man asked.

"My best explanation is that who, or 'what'-ever was transmitting that message saw that the Air Force was receiving the message and stopped transmitting before they got the whole message." Bradley explained.

"So you're saying that the Air Force was never meant to intercept the signal?" The older man asked.

"As far as we know, yes sir." Bradley said.

The older man thought about what Bradley was saying for almost a minute, but then got an idea.

"Alright, Bradley I want you in charge on this, find out if there is anything in the signal that can be used to trace it." He ordered.

"On it sir." Bradley said.

Bradley went back to work as the older man looked over to the younger man.

"Stenson I want you to get a hold of Director Alberts of the National Security Agency." He said.

"Yes sir, but if I may ask, for what reason?" Stenson asked.

"Whoever sent that signal will try to do it again, I want people monitoring as many computers as we can, if that signal shows up again, I want it found." He said.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hiccup, wake up or you're going to be late." A large burly man by the name of Stoick with a large red beard bellowed from the bottom of a staircase.

In a somewhat messy bedroom, we see a teenage was slouched on his desk, snoring loudly as a little trickled out of his opened mouth.

"Hiccup!" Stoick yelled again.

Hiccup suddenly jerked from his sleep and sat up dazed and confused, wiping his eyes he felt the drool coming from his mouth. Cringing in disgust he wiped it away with the back of his hand, he then blinks a few times in order to focus his vision. His desk was a cluttered mess, his laptop was surrounded by papers and books. Turning around he spotted a medium-sized black lab sleeping soundly on his unused bed, but then his gaze settled on the alarm clock which read 6:37. His eyes went wide as he shot up out of his chair and in what looked like an instant he changed out of his night wear into a forest green t-shirt, dark blue jeans and black Nike's. He quickly grabbed his backpack from his bed, rousing his dog from his sleep, causing the pooch to dart his eyes around the room.

"Sorry Toothless." Hiccup said as he patted the dogs head before turning to the door. "Alright I'll see you later buddy." He said as he left the room.

Hiccup rushed downstairs, trying his best to fix his bed head as he made his way to the kitchen where his father was writing on some forms. The large looked up and greeted his frazzled son with a stern look.

"Fell asleep at the computer again." He asked even though Hiccup knew it was a rhetorical question.

"Dad can we can hold off on your routine 'spending too much time on the computer' speech until I get home." Hiccup retorted as he grabbed a piece of toast.

Hiccup walked to the door and barely missed walking into an older woman with long brown hair.

"Sorry mom, can't stop, love you." Hiccup said quickly as he left the house.

"Fell asleep in front of the computer again?" She asked her husband as she sat at the table.

"Yep, I tell you Val he spends way too much time on that thing." Stoick said.

"Stoick don't you normally save that speech Hiccup?" Valka joked.

Stoick rolled his eyes as he got back to work, outside the house it was a cool March morning as Hiccup go onto his bike and went as fast as he could, thanking whoever was listening that his high school was only about 15 minutes away by bike. _Berk High_ was bustling, the school day was about to begin as students were walking into the main building, Hiccup stopped his bike near the bike rack, affixing the lock he ran into the school. Inside a classroom on the third floor, the students were waiting for the bell to ring, some were sitting at their desks while others were talking with each other. One group was composed of a beefy-armed young man with brown hair and a 'piggish' nose named Snotlout Jorgenson he was currently talking to a very large blonde haired boy with short legs by the name of Fishlegs Ingerman. There was also a pair of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, both with long blonde hair, but the girl kept hers tied in large braids while her brother kept his straight, both of whom are named Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorston respectively.

"I'm telling you guys, last night was incredible, Astrid totally wanted me." Snotlout bragged.

"Really because that's not what she texted me." Ruffnut corrected.

"What, come on I bet it was the best date of her life." He said.

"Far from it according to her." Tuffnut said.

"Yeah and if I can point out, I don't think running into her at the park constitutes as a date." Fishlegs explained.

Snotlout glared at the large boy but he quickly lost interest when he spotted Hiccup walking rather quickly into the class, causing him to smirk.

"Well look what the cat coughed up, rough morning fishbone?" Snotlout commented.

"Really not in the mood Snotlout." Hiccup said passing the group.

Hiccup made his way to his desk and sat down, he then gave a quick sigh of relief as he saw the clock read 7:25, made it with five minutes to spare. Hiccup took a moment to relax and pulled out his book for the class, silently glad that he got to start the day with one his favorite classes, Astronomy. Even though it just counts as an elective, he liked it all the same, so much so that he can tolerate having Snotlout and the twins in the same room, he ignored Snotlout's opening comment, almost every day since elementary school he has not failed to give at least one insult at Hiccup.

It's been going on for so long that Hiccup just ignores it, although some days are better than others, especially when some of those days Snotlout chose to 'rough house' as he called it. It was hard enough to avoid him at school, but for it's even harder when both their fathers were friends, so they tend to spend a lot of 'quality time', yay. The twins weren't as bad, but that didn't mean that they were easy to deal with, aside from being annoying they can also be very destructive, luckily for Hiccup they're a little more opportunistic when it comes to targets. Now he didn't have anything against Fishlegs, he doesn't really mess with him though he also chooses to hang with the others which sometimes perplexes him.

Look around the room Hiccup spotted the one other reason Astronomy was one of his favorite classes, and her name was Astrid Hofferson. For Hiccup, seeing at the beginning of the day never got old, in fact there were times it made his day and on this day she was sitting at her usual spot, reading a book while listening to music, probably to drown out Snotlout's voice. She was currently wearing a blue long sleeved shirt and a red skirt which dark blue leggings and bark brown boots, not to mention she was wearing a red head band and had her blonde hair in a braid, although some strand fell over her eye, she casually blew them back.

Hiccup gave a quick glance in her direction and then quickly focused his gaze at his notebook in which he casually doodled, he didn't want her to think that he was creepy. Hiccup was amazed that even though they've gone to elementary school together, pretty much share the same classes and that she lived down the street from him, she probably didn't know anything about him except his name. As he kept drawing, Hiccup couldn't help but think about whether or not he should try to talk to her, although he had a sinking feeling that it wasn't going to end well, even though Astrid in his opinion was like a falcon; smart, beautiful, but piss her off and she'll rip you to shreds. Not only is Astrid possibly the most attractive sophomore in the school, hell maybe the most attractive girl period, but she also happens to be the star of the high school track team with a major competitive streak. Many boys in their class have tried and failed to ask her out, they were either met with a rebuttal or if they still don't get the message then a physical injury. Snotlout to Hiccup's knowledge seems to be one of the more persistant ones and no matter times Astrid says no or threatens him, he still tries.

Hiccup has had a crush on her for as long as he can remember, however he refrains from trying to do anything for both a fear of being assaulted and being rejected but he still has a little ray of hope for the possibility. He was snapped out of his thoughts when the bell rang and their teacher entered the room. She was a woman in here mid 30's with short brown hair and was a wearing a red blouse and black pants. She stood about 5' 9'' and had an average built, she walked to her desk and placed her materials on top as she looked around the room.

"Alright everybody class has started so let's get started." She said as the remaining students took their seats.

The teacher, known to the school as Ms. Helga Webber, walked to the front of the class and pulled down the projector screen as she began her lesson.

"Now today we're going to deviate a little bit from the lesson plan, while I said we were going to talk about the life cycle of stars, I decided to talk about a different subject." She explained.

Hiccup and several of the other students looked to each other in confusion over what she was talking about. Ms. Webber then made her way to the light switch and dimmed the lights and began to talk again as she made she reached for her projector remote.

"You see last night I was looking through some online journals when I found one that caught my attention. According to astronomers, they have managed to find 3 more planets in the Andromeda Galaxy that are capable of sustaining life." She said.

The students looked at her with confused looks, although some of them seemed vaguely interested. Ms. Webber pressed a button on her remote and the projector flashed an image the Andromeda Galaxy.

"That article got me thinking and I thought that maybe today we could have a little discussion about the possibility of life on other planets." She said.

Some of the students began to talk amongst themselves about the topic but they were all silenced when Tuffnut decided to start the discussion.

"You mean like little space mutants that abduct people and harvest their organs?" He asked, less in mockery and more in genuine interest.

Many of the students laughed and Ms. Webber just rolled her eyes.

"You know Tuffnut sometimes I feel that I can never really get class started without one of your 'profound' observations." Ms. Webber joked.

This made Tuffnut a little embarrassed as he became quiet, Hiccup couldn't help but smile at the teacher's response.

"Now we're not going to talk about that, but I do want to talk about the possibility of other intelligent lifeforms. Interesting thing about this subject, 70 years ago this would have sounded like pure science fiction, but as our understanding of the universe grows, so does our openness to the concept of alien life." She explained.

Hiccup began to pay close attention to her words and he couldn't help but ponder to himself about the possibility of such a thing. ' _Definitely seems more likely when you think about it'_ he thought to himself.

"Now there are many questions about the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, but remember there is still one obvious yet crucial detail, and that is that the Universe is _Big._ " She said emphasizing the word _Big._

She clicked her remote and another picture came up, this one was of the Hubble-Ultra Deep Field which showed images of stars and galaxies.

"We've been taking pictures for years but haven't come anywhere even remotely close to truly understanding the sheer expanse of the Universe. With this in mind it isn't so far-fetched to think that somewhere in this expansive nether is some kind of intelligent life." She said.

As she talked, Astrid raised her hand up which caught Ms. Webber's attention.

"Yes Astrid?" She asked.

"If there is intelligent life, could there be civilizations?" Astrid asked.

"Well that's an interesting question, unfortunately it's one that I can't give a straight answer to. There is a chance for intelligent life to exist, but the idea of civilizations is in completely different ball park, though that's not to say that there aren't any, who knows what's out there in the universe." Ms. Webber explained.

Astrid thought for a moment and shrugged, Hiccup then getting idea raised his hand.

"Yes Hiccup?" Ms. Webber asked.

"If there is a possibility of civilization on other worlds, what is the possibility of technological advancement?" He asked.

"Another interesting question, as we can see from our own history, after species progress and civilizations rise so does technology. Again we don't really know what's out there in the Universe but again it's not entire crazy to think that some kind of civilization has developed advance technology, heck maybe even space travel." She said.

"Alien invasion, I knew it!" Tuffnut exclaimed.

The class was silent for a second, Ms. Webber was just giving Tuffnut an irritated look.

"You done Tuffnut?" She asked.

"Yep." Tuffnut said slinking in his seat.

"Look everybody, I want you to know that this is just a discussion, we're not trying to solve any major questions about the Universe. This is just to get us to think a little bit about possibilities that come with new discoveries, and besides if there were aliens travelling through space, maybe they wouldn't want to invade, who knows, maybe they would want to try to communicate with us." She explained.

As Ms. Webber went back to here lesson, Hiccup couldn't help but thinking about the possibility of mankind meeting another species, though one question pops into his mind, ' _how would they contact us?_ '


	3. Chapter 3

_NSA Headquarters-Fort Mead-Maryland-0900 hours_

Within the corridors of the National Security Agency headquarters, the older CIA agent was walking briskly with agent Stenson trying to keep up. Both men came to a double door at the end of the corridor where a young woman with short blonde hair and wearing pant suit was waiting for them.

"Agent Philips, agent Stenson, my name is Jennifer Nilsson and welcome to Maryland." She greeted as she held out her hand.

"Thank you Jennifer, I just wish I was here under better circumstances." Philips responded shaking her hand.

"Well that can't be helped now." She responded.

"Will Director Alberts be joining us?" Stenson asked as he shook Jennifer's hand.

"Unfortunately no, despite the situation he was tied up with a prior engagement so he assigned me to be your liaison for this operation." She explained.

"As long as we can get to the bottom of this I'm fine with it. So did Alberts supply us with the resources we asked for?" Philips said.

"Ah yes, right this way gentlemen." Jennifer instructed as she turned and walked towards the doors with the two agents in tow.

Approaching the door, Jennifer stood before a scanner on the side, she took out her ID card and swiped it down. The device emitted a green light at the doors unlocked, allow the trio to enter, once inside, the two agents looked around. They saw that they were in a control room with several people checking monitors, there were no lights and the only kind of light was being emitted from the monitors which gave the room a dark blue tint. In front on them was a glass pane that separated the control room from the main floor, the area in question was much larger and on a lower level than the control room. Within it were several rows of computer terminals, each manned by a programmer who was deciphering code.

"Impressive." Philips said.

"It's not much, but due to the nature of the situation it's really all we can afford at this time." Jennifer explained.

Jennifer had a point, when Alberts was informed about the signal, he contacted the President about to inform him of the situation. The commander and chief gave him the go ahead to do whatever necessary to get to the bottom of it. However due to the unknown nature and fearing the possibility that word will spread, he wanted the CIA and NSA to keep things quiet so as to not create suspicion.

"Well it's going to have to do." Philips said.

Looking down, Philips spotted a familiar young man who was currently overlooking several terminals. The young man looked up and saw Philips, he immediately walked to the staircase that lead into the control room. Upon entering he shook Philips and Stenson's hands.

"Good to see you Bradley." Philips greeted.

"Thank you sir." Bradley said.

"How have they been treating you?" Stenson asked.

"Not too bad, I mean with the 'ghost' stories you hear about these kinds of organizations, I was nervous but…" He began.

"Okay son reel it in." Philips said trying to keep Bradley focused, "So have you found anything?" He asked.

"Unfortunately no sir, right now we're checking every computer in the country to see if the signal surfaces again." Bradley explained.

"And there's no sign of it?" Stenson asked.

"Nothing sir, like agent Nilsson said we're working with limited resources here. We only have about 30 people monitoring, lucky for us the unique frequency of the signal make it easy to identify, but we still have millions of computers to check." Bradley explained.

"It's like trying to find a needle in a hay stack." Stenson said.

"More like trying to find a needle in a field of haystacks." Nilsson said.

"Exactly." Bradley said.

"Look I don't care how many computers you have to check, we need to find out if and when this signal is going to show up again and when it does we need to act quickly." Philips explained.

* * *

Meanwhile, many miles away at Berk high school, Hiccup was at his locker, putting his books away as he got ready for his next class. He had just gotten out of Algebra and as he place his math book away he rubbed his eyes because he was still a little tired from his hectic awakening.

"Man dad's going to have a field day when I get home." Hiccup said to himself already imagining what his father was going to say about his computer activities.

However not too far from where he was, Snotlout and the twins were walking down the hall talking about the discussion.

"Seriously man, space mutants?" Snotlout asked.

"It was a reasonable question." Tuffnut defended.

"Look man, if anything was going to invade I think they would look more like the little grey aliens you see in those old tabloids." Snotlout said.

"You're both nuts, they'll obviously look like giant squid creatures." Ruffnut said.

"Well I think..." Snotlout was about to say until he saw Hiccup and a mischievous grin formed on his face. "Hang on a second." He told the twins.

Snotlout picked up his pace a little bit and when he got close to Hiccup he purposely rammed his shoulder into Hiccup, causing the smaller boy to be knocked over, spilling some of his books on the ground.

"Oops." Snotlout laughed as he kept walking, the twins snickered as well as they caught up with him.

Some of the other students laughed a little while others didn't pay any mind, and as for Hiccup he picked himself back up.

"How original." He said to himself as he began to pick his books up.

Standing up he placed his books back in the locker and shut it, he gave one last hard look in the direction Snotlout was walking and turned around. At that moment his forest eyes met blue as he almost bumped right into Astrid.

"Whoa." He quickly said with his hand raised slightly.

"Hey watch out." Astrid said a little irritated.

"Sorry, wasn't looking where I was going." Hiccup said nervously.

"Well, you might want to try and be careful this is a crowded hallway." She said.

"Will do." He said as he was about to turn and leave.

"Hold on a second, weren't you the one who asked that question in Ms. Webber's class?" She asked.

"Which question?" He asked.

"You know, the one about technology that was built by another species." She pointed out.

"Ah yeah that was me, why, was it a stupid question?" He asked.

"No actually I thought it was interesting." She said.

"Really, you know to be fair I only thought about it when you mentioned civilizations." He said.

"Oh yeah that, I was actually thinking about my history class, we were talking about the rise of Mesopotamia and I guess it stuck." Astrid explained.

"History, are in Mr. Richter's class?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" She asked.

"I had him last semester, he really likes talking about the ancient world." He said.

"I find it interesting how people can go from living in tribes to building cities and I was wondering if the same principle would apply on a different planet." She said.

"Possibly, if the species in question had the same kind of mental capacity as humans, I mean I like to think that…" He started until he was interrupted by Astrid as she checked her phone.

"Hold on, sorry I can't really stay and chat, I got to get to gym class." She said.

"Oh yeah sorry, I really need to get to shop." Hiccup said as the two passed each other and went in opposite directions. As he walked Hiccup was mentally celebrating, _"We actually had a short conversation!"_ He mentally cheered.

Walking down to the lower levels of the school he came across a double door, opening it he found himself in a massive room where several students, who were wearing safety gear and welders masks were working on various projects. Hiccup smiled slightly and got to work, to him Metal Shop was his favorite class and he was lucky enough that he got it for two class periods all he had to do was trade in his study hall class. For him it was the one place in school where he didn't feel like an outcast.

"Almost came in late laddy." He heard a heavily Scottish accent say.

Hiccup turned and saw his teacher Mr. Belch, though he and many of the other students just call him Gobber. He was a large man with a bald head, long blonde mustache, and a prosthetic hand, though he also has a prosthetic foot it's concealed by his pants, both of which he lost in a horrific car wreck. Gobber was wearing an apron with some smudges on it, under that he wore a pale yellow shirt, dark brown pants and boots.

"Sorry about that Gobber, I had both a pleasant and unpleasant encounter." Hiccup said as he got some safety glasses.

"Oh really." Gobber said interested.

"Yeah, an unpleasant encounter with Snotlout and a pleasant encounter with Astrid." Hiccup said as he rolled up his shirt sleeves.

"Really." Gobber said surprised.

"I tell you Gobber this is actually turning out to be a good day." Hiccup said.

"Astrid talking to ya, looks more like a bad omen to me." Gobber joked.

"Really funny." Hiccup replied sarcastically.

"Oh I'm just givin' ya a hard time." Gobber said patting Hiccup on the back.

Hiccup smiled and rolled his eyes and got to work on his latest project, he was making a small sculpture of a dragon for his mother, her birthday was coming up and Hiccup knew that when she was little she used to love reading stories about the large winged reptiles. He took out the small metallic item, he was making good progress but still had some work to do.

"Lookin' good Hiccup." Gobber said admiring the sculpture.

"Yeah, I just hope she likes it." Hiccup said.

"Oh I'm sure she'll love it, in fact, funny story, when your parents were dating, your father got a tattoo of a dragon on his shoulder for their anniversary and your mother went nuts." Gobber said, "In fact she liked it so much she gave him a 'special' gift that night." Gobber said giving him a wink.

"Okay a little too much information big guy." Hiccup said.

Gobber just laughed as he went to check over other students and Hiccup got to work, he put on some gloves, grabbed a ball-peen hammer and started working on some sheet metal. As he did this he couldn't help but think about what Gobber said, normally you wouldn't have this sort of conversation with a teacher, but it's a little different when set teacher is best friends with your parents. Hiccup has known Gobber since he was a little kid, in fact he was the one who got him interested in metal work, hell he's been like a second father to him. Nearly 2 hours pass and Hiccup was getting much closer to making his dragon sculpture, then he heard the bell ring, putting away his project he made his way to the door.

"Good work out there everybody." Gobber called out to everyone as they walked out, however he stopped Hiccup, "Hiccup can I talk to ya for a second?" He asked.

Hiccup walked over to the one-handed man and looked at him curiously, "Yeah Gobber?" He asked.

"I noticed ya were a little tired, not enough sleep?" He asked.

"Fell asleep in front of my computer…again." Hiccup said slightly embarrassed.

"Oh, I bet your father had something to say." Gobber chuckled.

"Lucky for me I got out of the house before he could start." Hiccup said.

"Yeah but ya know ya just postponed the inevitable." Gobber said.

"I know, I can picture what he's going to say." Hiccup said, he then puffed his chest out a little bit and said, "Hiccup, you need to stop staring at that computer of yours, the world's out there not behind a screen." Hiccup imitated his father with a fake Scottish accent, causing Gobber to laugh.

"Gets me every time." He said.

"I mean I understand what he's saying, but I wish he could understand that there so much I can do on a computer." Hiccup said.

"Ya got it all wrong Hiccup, he doesn't hate computers, it's just that we grew up in a different time, back then we had to do every the hard way, not like today." Gobber explained.

"Yeah I hear you, I'm just hoping he comes around, who knows maybe a career in computers is in my future." Hiccup said.

"Hey don't forget about metal work, now that's something you and your father could agree on." Gobber pointed out.

"You could be right about that Gobber." Hiccup said.

"Just keep it in mind, by the way don't worry about your mother, she's going to love her gift." Gobber said.

"I hope so." Hiccup said.

"I keep tellin' ya lad you just need a little confidence and that's also how to Astrid's attention." Gobber said.

"Okay Gobber as much as I like to talk about my non-existent love life, I need to get going." Hiccup said turning around and heading for the doors.

"I'll tell ya what, if you get Astrid to go out with ya, I'll give ya an 'A' for this class until graduation." Gobber joked.

"See you later Gobber." Hiccup said as he left the smiling teacher. As he walked down the hall he couldn't help but think about his little talk with Astrid. " _Who knew thinking about aliens actually got her to talk to me, the Universe definitely is a strange thing_." He thought to himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Hiccup sat in his room as Toothless was busying himself with a raw-hide that he just got, the young man was decompressing from his latest 'discussion' with his father, if you want to call it that. Over time Hiccup had found a pattern whenever it comes to talking with his father, although he felt that shouldn't call it that because talking normally involve _both_ parties participating. However, they normally are one-sided and entails his father lecturing him while he nodded and managed to sneak in the response.

"You know bud; I wonder if I could ever have a real conversation with dad." Hiccup told his canine companion, who looked up from his snack at his human with a knowing look on his face. "Yeah you're right, probably shouldn't get my hopes up." Hiccup joked.

Being where he is at this point in time, Hiccup didn't really have a lot of people to talk to, none of the other students, he and his father barely have actual conversations, the only people he could really talk to are his mother and Gobber. However Toothless was a special exception, ever since Hiccup first found the pup at the kennel, there was a connection and the two became almost inseparable. Toothless was able to tell how Hiccup really felt and to Hiccup he was his most trusted confidant; in fact, he was more comfortable talking to Toothless than he did with other humans.

"By the way bud, we had a very interesting talk in class today, we were talking about possible alien life in the Universe." He said as Toothless looked at him quizzically. "That got me thinking about what would happen if they tried to contact us, that would be interesting, maybe I could find another sapient creature who I could have a conversation with, bring my total to three." He explained.

Hiccup leaned back in his chair and took a deep sigh as Toothless went back to his bone. After a few moments, Hiccup's eyes began shut as he drifted off to sleep, however as he did this, he did not notice that his laptop screen that he had on to do homework, began to flicker.

* * *

Downstairs in the living room, Stoick sat his recliner and much like Hiccup, he was decompressing from his latest talk. The burly man had given Hiccup _another_ lecture about his computer usage.

' _Son, you need to tear yourself away from that laptop; You need to start branching out other people more; Life is out there not behind that screen'._ Were just some of the things that Stoick had to say to his son.

As he flipped through the channels, he heard the door open and saw Valka walking in, to him it's not an uncommon sight, sometimes Valka works late at the shelter, filing papers and making sure that all the animals have been properly fed.

"How was your day Val?" Stoick asked his wife who put down her satchel and walked over to him.

"Eh, busy but we managed to get a few animals a new home." She said as she leaned down and kissed her husband on the cheek. "How about you?" She asked.

"Same old, same old." Stoick said, however Valka looked at him and noticed something in Stoick's face and knew what was going on.

"Did you have another talk with Hiccup?" She asked.

"Yes." He said evenly, although Valka knew that he was hiding something.

"And it was about him falling asleep at the computer again?" She pressed on.

"Umm, yes." Stoick said taking a double take at Valka, almost as if he was nervous.

"Okay, last question, was this an actually talk where both of you exchanged words, or did you just lecture him and he was lucky to get a word in edge wise?" She asked.

Stoick gave a nervous look to his wife as if he knew that she wasn't going to like the response, he then turned his gaze away from her and only gave a 'hmm', however that was all Valka needed for an answer.

"Stoick." She moaned as she turned around, prompting her husband to stand up and walk over to her.

"Valka, don't make me the bad guy here." He demanded. He followed her to the kitchen where Valka turned to face him.

"I'm not trying to make you the bad guy, I just don't agree with how you 'talk' with our son." Valka said, adding quotation fingers to the word talk.

"I'm trying to get him to enjoy the real world a little bit." Stoick retorted.

"I do too Stoick, but you won't be able to reach him if you don't stop talking _down_ to him and start talking _to_ him." Valka explained crossing her arms.

"I try, but sometimes he has the attention span of a sparrow." Stoick said.

"That's because whenever you two speak to each other you sound like a parole officer talking to a delinquent, he's heard it so many times that he tunes it out." Valka explained.

"What do you want me to do Valka? At times I want to have a conversation with him he doesn't share the acknowledgement, he talks more to his dog than he does to me." Stoick said.

"I know dear; this is something that you both need to work on. You know I remember when he was little and all he wanted to do was spend time with you. Of course you were busy a lot so you two drifted apart." Valka explained, "Now our little boy is growing up, but I still think there's a chance for you two to salvage a relationship. All you need to do is try and connect with him." She said.

Stoick thought over her words for a moment and then sighed, "Alright Val, I'll try as best as I can." Stoick said.

"Thank you Stoick." Valka said with a slight smile.

* * *

Back up in his room, Hiccup was sleeping in his chair until he leaned back a little too far and the chair fell over. The sudden impact with the ground startled Hiccup awake, with a yelp he stood up, looking around and realizing where he was he calmed down a little, _"Dosed off again, I hope this doesn't become a habit."_ He thought to himself.

Looking over to his bed he saw Toothless laying in his preferred spot, have also been startled awake by Hiccup's fall. "Sorry about that bud, you can go back to sleep." He said as the canine gladly complied.

Hiccup then turned his attention back to his laptop and reached to turn it off, however when he got close to it, something strange happened. The screen began to flicker, subtly at first but then quickly became more erratic.

"What the?" Hiccup mumbled to himself as he inspected the device.

In no time the screen became wildly distorted until it suddenly went black, Hiccup was very confused about what had just happened. "Okay, I think I need get this thing fixed." He said to himself.

But before he could do anything, the screen lit up and what appeared confused Hiccup even more, on the screen were four lines of some strange, unrecognizable text that alternated between moving up and down on the screen. "What the hell." Hiccup said, more fascinated than confused, for some reason he felt drawn towards the strange letters, if he could call them that.

Looking down at his keyboard he pressed a random key, it caused a line on one of the rows to light up for a second until the whole row quickly sped up, only to slow down to its original pace a moment later. This caused Hiccup's eyes to widen in curiosity as he continued to observe the moving symbols.

"This could be interesting." He said.


	5. Chapter 5

"What could this mean?" Hiccup mumbled to himself as he continued to stare at his computer screen, following the strange script that moved along his display.

Ever since the code appeared on his laptop, Hiccup had been looking at it almost non-stop, everything about it perplexed him, from the language it was written in to the way it reacted whenever he tinkered with it. Hiccup was currently sitting in the library of the school, it was lunch hour, normally for him it was a time where he would eat and try not to get harassed by Snotlout and the gang. Luckily for him the library was open to students around this hour so that students can catch up on some work or just get some peace and quiet.

"It feels like I've seen this writing before but where?" He asked himself in some vain attempt to find the answer. The writing on the screen was unlike anything he had seen before, however for some reason he felt that it was in some way familiar.

As he was checking the writing another familiar figure entered the library and that figure just happened to be Astrid. She came to the library to not only study, but also to get away from the others are a bit, Fishlegs was fine, however she could only take Snotlout and the twins for so long before she lost her mind and turn the cafeteria into a crime scene. As she walked among the bookshelves looking for a place to sit, she spotted Hiccup sitting by himself near the large windows. She's not sure why but she felt as though sitting with him wouldn't be so bad so she walked over and noticed that he was staring intensely at his computer screen.

"Hey Hiccup." She greeted which caused Hiccup to be startled and almost fall out of his seat and when he looked at her his eyes went wide.

"Hey Astrid, hi Astrid, hi." He repeated nervously which earned him a slightly confused look from her and after a few moments he regained his composure. "What brings you up here?" He asked.

"Oh I just wanted some peace and quiet, Snotlout can really get under your skin." She said.

"Yeah well that's Snotlout for you, believe or not he can be way worse." Hiccup said.

"Really?" Astrid asked in slight disbelief.

"Yes, trust me I know." He said while cocking his eyebrows and then let out a slight chuckle, "Sometimes I can't believe we're related." He said.

"Oh yeah, for some reason I keep forgetting that you guys are cousins, maybe it's because you two are so different." She said and after a brief moment of awkward silence she spoke again, "Hey do you care if I sit here?"

"No, not at all, by all means." Hiccup said trying to hide his shock from the fact that _Astrid Hofferson_ of all people wanted to sit with him.

Astrid took a seat on the side of the table to the right of Hiccup and cracked open a Chemistry textbook and silently scanned through the pages. As she was doing this Hiccup went back to looking at his computer, but on occasion he would peak over to the blonde-haired girl in disbelief before returning to his work. After a minute or so he decided to try to break the silence by the first question he could think of. "So do you have a test coming up?" He asked.

Astrid looked up at him in confusion. "Excuse me?" She asked.

"The book, are you studying for a test?" Hiccup asked.

"Oh, well, kind of. Some of my classmates said that we might have a surprise quiz later today, I don't really believe them, but I might as well be safe." She explained.

"Okay, well at least you're thinking ahead." Hiccup said.

"Yeah, well lucky for me this class isn't too hard." Astrid explained.

"Do you have Mr. Fitzpatrick for Chemistry?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah, did you have him?" Astrid asked.

"Ah no actually I didn't take Chemistry, I took Biology with Mrs. Ferdinand instead." He explained. "But I did hear from some others who had his class and said that he could be a tough teacher." He said.

"Well he's not all that bad, as long as you put some effort into the work that is." Astrid said. "So you took Biology, was that any good?" Astrid asked.

"As a matter of fact it was, I actually learned some interesting things." Hiccup said.

"Sounds like you're really into this sort of stuff." Astrid said.

"Well I've sort of grown up around animals all my life, my mom works at the shelter and when I was little I always wanted to hang around all the animals." He explained.

"Wow, that's pretty cool." Astrid said before returning to her book.

Hiccup was about to go back to his own work until something caught his eye. Looking over he noticed that Astrid has a small bookmark that had a picture of a dragon covered in vibrant blue, yellow and red colored scales.

"That's a cool looking bookmark." He said.

Astrid looked down at her bookmark and picked it up, "Oh this, it's nothing, just something I got because it looked cool." She said.

"Is that a dragon?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah, I have a bit of a thing for them." Astrid said and Hiccup thought he picked up a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

"Really, same here." Hiccup said.

Astrid looked at him with surprise. "Really?" She asked.

"Yeah in fact when I was six I was totally obsessed with them to the point where I tried to make my room into a 'dragon cave'." He explained a little embarrassed.

"That's pretty crazy." Astrid said with a smirk.

"So where did you get it?" Hiccup asked.

"I uh, actually bought it last year at that art festival." She explained.

"You mean the one they host in the park?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah, it's tomorrow and I always like going there." Astrid said.

Hearing this, Hiccup, for reasons he could not explain, felt a brief surge of confidence and did something that he had never done before. "You know I like going there too, maybe, if you're interested of course, you would like to go with me?" Hiccup asked while subtly bracing himself for the response, but to his utter shock he heard this.

"Sure that sounds good." Astrid said.

Hiccup inwardly screamed in a mixture of utter shock and pure joy, "Really?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow and say ten-thirty?" She asked as she collected her stuff and stood up.

"Sure no problem." Hiccup said still reeling from her response.

"Cool, see you then." She said walking away.

As Hiccup watched her leave the library, he remained frozen in his seat, almost completely forgetting about the contents on his laptop. ' _I just asked Astrid on a date, and she said yes!'_ Hiccup thought to himself, and after a few moments he looked up and mentally shouted, _'THANK YOU!'_

* * *

Within the confines of NSA headquarters, agents Philips and Nilsson were both in the control room minding to their own tasks. Nilsson was checking one of the computer monitors while Philips just stared out the window overlooking the main floor deep in thought. After a minute the door opened and agent Stenson came walking in holding some paper cups.

"I got coffee if anyone's interested?" He asked, and Nilsson came up and graciously took one of the cups. It has been a long process; they've all been monitoring computer chatter for over twelve hours.

"Thank you." Nilsson said to Stenson before she returned to her task.

"Coffee sir?" Stenson asked Philips.

"No thank you Stenson I'm fine." Philips said not turning from the window.

"Are you alright sir?" Stenson asked putting the coffee down.

Philips took a deep breath and turned around to face the others. "I just don't understand something." Philips said as the other two agents looked at him in confusion. "What would that be?" Nilsson asked.

"Whoever is sending the signal seems to be able to hack into whatever system they want without any trouble, I mean it broke through AFSC's firewalls without them noticing." Philips explained.

"What are you getting at sir?" Stenson asked.

"What I'm getting at is that whoever they are could have the potential to completely disrupt our communications or do God knows what else, but yet they don't, instead they choose to hide somewhere among millions of computers." He explained he turned back towards the window and looked at the giant screen which showed a map of the United States. "What are they trying to do?" He asked.


	6. Chapter 6

Bradley was currently slouching over a table in a grey-colored breakroom with NSA headquarters. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and he was using the other to support his head so he wouldn't pass out, though it isn't unreasonable for him to feel tired, after all how are you supposed to feel after checking computer monitors for over 19 hours. As the young programmer took another sip of his beverage the door opened, looking over he saw agents Stenson and Nilsson came walking in.

"Evening Bradly." Stenson greeted as he made his way to the coffee machine.

"Actually according to my watch, morning started over an hour ago." Bradley said taking a peek at his wrist watch.

"Oh, well I guess being in a windowless building staring at screens can really mess up your perception of time." Stenson said as he poured some coffee.

"It's all part of the job Stenson." Nilsson said grabbing a cup.

"You know we're technically off the clock you can call me Nathan." Stenson said stepping away from the coffee pot so that Jennifer could get to it.

"Well Nathan as I was saying this is standard protocol for us…well kind of." Jennifer explained as she poured herself a cup. "Normally we would have much more people on this but again due to what we're looking at." She trailed, allowing Nathan to finish the thought.

"I got it, I got it." He said taking a sip of his beverage. "It is pretty weird when you think about, I think Phillips is on to something, we got an unknown signal that we can't track that's being transmitted from somewhere we don't know by a mysterious part who can hack into are systems without much effort." He explained with nervous undertones.

"I have to hand it to whoever is doing it, they clearly know their way around code." Bradley said with a subtle admiration.

"You're applauding these hackers?" Jennifer asked.

"Not at all, I'm just saying that they know what they're doing." Bradley said about to take another sip but stopped momentarily, "By the way the term _Hacker_ isn't as slanderous as you think it is, many actually take it as a compliment." He said bringing the cup to his lips.

"Thank you for that lesson in computer etiquette." Jennifer said with obvious sarcasm.

"You know sarcasm in unbecoming of a federal agent." Nathan joked earning him a slightly playful eye roll from Jennifer. "Speaking of which I kind or agree with Bradley on this one, whoever's sending the signal is pretty good." He said.

"Well good or not I hope we can find our perpetrators; this whole thing is getting more bizarre the more I think about." Jennifer said.

"Bizarre, but strangely familiar to me." Bradley said to which both agents looked at him confused.

"What do you mean?" Nathan asked.

"What…oh it's nothing, just reminds me of something that happened a long time ago." He said.

"And what would that be?" Jennifer asked.

"Well when I was a freshman at MIT, we used to hear some old _ghost_ stories for the upperclassmen." Bradley explained.

"This reminds you of a ghost story you heard in college?" Nathan asked a little skeptical.

"It wasn't so much a ghost story as much as a rumor, but still it was really popular around the them time." Bradley began as he took another sip of his coffee while the other two looked at him with interest. "You see it goes like this, back in '78, a graduate student name Franklin Holbrook was doing research using university servers. As you know computers back then weren't as powerful as they are now but could still hold billions of lines of code." He explained.

"Alright." Jennifer said, following along with Bradley's story.

"Well one night when he was working, they say he _found_ something in the code." Bradley said.

"What did he find?" Nathan asked getting more invested.

"No one was sure, the people who told the story described it as a whisper in the servers, like a message that no one understood." Bradley said.

Both the agents listened intensely to Bradley's, noting how eerily similar it sounded to their current situation, then Jennifer spoke up. "So what happened to Franklin?" She asked.

"No one knows, some say that he tried to solve the message and went crazy, others say that he was taken by some shadowy organization, either way he just disappeared, dropped right off the map without a trace." Bradley said.

After he finished his story there was a brief silence in the room, no one uttered a word, it felt like forever until Nathan broke the silence. "Well I guess you were right Bradley that does sound like a ghost story." He said.

"Yeah, well we probably should get back to work." Jennifer said heading for the door.

"Good idea." Bradley said as he and Nathan followed suit, seemingly anxious to get back to work and forget about Bradley's little tale.

* * *

Meanwhile many miles away in Berk, the morning sun was burning bright as Hiccup was rummaging through his closet, looking for something to wear for today was the day he was meeting Astrid at the Art Festival. "So what do you think bud?" He said holding out a pale blue long sleeve to show his dog.

Set animal was laying on Hiccup's bed and looked slightly perplexed at his human's behavior. "You don't like it." Hiccup said as he hung the shirt back up and continued to look.

The best way to describe Hiccup's mood at this point would be a mixture of exhilaration and terror. He was happy because he was hanging out with Astrid, but he was scared that he was going to to do something stupid. After a few more minutes of searching Hiccup finally settled on his attire, going with a green t-shirt, dark brown jeans and a black jacket.

"Alright bud, wish me luck." He said as he went out the door.

Heading downstairs he walked into the kitchen where he saw his parents sitting at the table eating breakfast. "I'm heading out for a bit, be home later." He said heading for the door but was stopped by his father's voice.

"Where are you going son?" He asked.

"Oh I was heading over to that art festival in the park." He said, although by looking at him, Stoick knew that there was more to the story.

"Is that all?" He asked cocking an eyebrow.

"Well…I'm also meeting someone." He said a little nervous.

"Oh, who are you meeting with?" Valka asked.

"Umm…Astrid." He said though seemed a very embarrassed about doing so.

"The Hofferson girl?" His father asked fairly surprised.

"Yeah, we were going to meet at the park and check out the venues." He explained.

His parents were both surprised to hear that their son was meeting with a girl, but at the same time they were excited, though it was more obvious in Valka's case. "Well then we won't keep you dear, have fun." She said with a smile.

"Thanks mom, see you two later." He said as he walked out the door.

When he was gone, Valka turned to Stoick who still had a look of surprise on his face. "Well Stoick you said you wanted him to socialize a little more." She said.

"Yes, yes I did." Stoick said, a small smile creeping on his face.

* * *

Berk's town park was a popular spot for people to get together, it was located near the town square and was often the site for public functions. Aside from some of the basic amenities such as benches, picnic tables and a playground for kids, there was also a large community garden. On this particular day, a large clearing in the park was being used to host many different venues for artists to show off their latest works, and they picked a beautiful day to host the festival, with spring approaching, the leaves were growing back and some flowers were starting to bloom. Near the park entrance, Hiccup stood waiting for Astrid to arrive, looking at his phone he saw that it was past 10 o'clock. With every passing second he become more nervous over whether or not Astrid was going to show, however his fears were quickly put to rest when he saw her coming towards the entrance. She was wearing her blue shirt, dark blue jeans, her red skirt, brown boots and a navy blue jacket.

"Hey Astrid." He called over.

Astrid turned and saw him, "Hey Hiccup." She called back as she walked towards him.

When she got to him, Hiccup tried to say something but he quickly stopped himself, trying to figure out what to say, ' _What should I say, should I compliment her looks or should I just say hello?'_ He thought to himself, but then Astrid spoke up. "Are you okay?" She asked.

"Yeah, just thinking, so are you ready to see some art?" He asked.

"Yeah, should be fun." She said with a small smile as they both entered the park.

Over the next hour they enjoyed the sights, checking out the various paintings and sculptures that were around them, with styles ranging from cubism to abstract, all the while they both seemed to be having a nice time. As they continued to peruse the exhibits, Hiccup decided to say something.

"You mind if I confess something?" He asked.

"Sure, what is it." Astrid asked a little confused.

"Well to be honest I never really took you as someone who like this sort of stuff." He said, hoping he didn't offend her.

"Don't worry about it, you aren't the only one, a lot of people think that because I like physical sports, I don't really like art or literature. To be honest sometimes I feel a little embarrassed about it." She said.

"Well you shouldn't be." Hiccup said to which Astrid looked surprised, "I think it's pretty cool that you like this stuff, and if anyone has a problem with that than they're the ones you shouldn't be worried about." He said.

"Wow, that's actually pretty well said." Astrid said.

"Yeah I've been dealing with that sort of stuff for a while, not a lot of people seem to like my interest in programming." He said.

"Well I don't know too much about computer stuff, but where this world is heading I think you're in the right field." She said.

"Thanks." Hiccup said smiling, after that they both continued to walk in mutual comfortable silence.

However, what these two didn't know was that they weren't the only pair walking through the art show. Not too far from them, the twins where walking through, although they didn't seem too interested in the art. In fact, the only reason they were there was because after their last fight wrecked the living room, their mother kicked them out for the day so she could clean up.

"Man, mom was steaming." Tuffnut said.

"Well it was your fault." Ruffnut said.

"Hey, you started it butt-elf." He accused.

"No it was _your_ fault troll-face." She retorted.

As the two were about to get at it again, Ruffnut noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Looking over her eyes widened in shock, "Whoa, is that Astrid?" She asked.

Her brother followed her gaze and his reaction mirrored hers, "It is, and is that Hiccup?" He asked.

"Yeah, you think they're on a date?" She asked still in shock.

"Maybe, either way Snotlout's probably going to want to hear about this." He said as he took out his phone.

As the twins began sowing the seeds the discord, the other pair made their way to another exhibit and Astrid was getting a little excited. "Oh I love this one." She said.

"What is it?" Hiccup asked clearly curious but interested in the art around him.

"I always see this stuff when I come here, it's all art based on old Norse culture." She explained as she looked at the different pieces.

As Hiccup began to look, he was starting the share in Astrid's enthusiasm, Norse culture, specially the mythology has always been fascinating to him and a part of that probably comes from the fact that his family, much like many people in town are decedents of Vikings. Hell is Dad has several heirlooms from as far back as the 11th century. As he looked around, something caught his attention, it was a painting of a dragon, walking closer to it he could see the intricate details of the painting, but another detail caught his eye. It wasn't painted on a canvas, but a wooden circle that resembled and old Viking shield. This dragon had a very interesting design, it didn't have any horns but instead had some kind of ear-like flaps. It also had a sleek build and deep black scales, it was truly a unique design.

"You know if you didn't probably cost hundreds of dollars I would buy you." He joked to himself.

When he was about to leave he quickly noticed something else about the shield, on the outer rim, circling the dragon were Viking runes and something about them drew Hiccup in. " _Wait a second."_ He thought to himself.

Taking a closer look at the runes something clicked in his mind that causing his eyes to widen, " _Oh my God that's it!"_ He thought, however his thoughts were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. "Hey Hiccup?" Astrid asked.

The sudden interaction caused Hiccup to quickly turn around and give a quick yelp in surprise which alarmed Astrid. "Are you okay?" She quickly asked.

Hiccup took a few breaths and quickly regained his composure. "Yeah, I'm fine, what's up?" He asked.

"I was just going to say that I'm getting pretty hungry and I was wondering if you wanted to get some lunch?" She asked.

"Sure that sounds great." Hiccup asked as he quickly walked past her, Astrid was a little concerned but decided to follow.

* * *

The two went to a small deli not too far from the park and were currently walking on the sidewalk while chatting and occasionally laughing, the street they were one was fairly empty, most likely because most of the people were in the park. "So Snotlout dared me to try and recreate the vault scene from _Mission Impossible_ using a rope made from tied of bed sheets." He said as Astrid laughed.

"You seriously did that?" She asked between giggles, "What were you thinking?"

"Hey give me a break, I was eight." He said.

"Did it work?" She asked.

"If by work you mean that the rope broke and I crushed my mom's rose garden, then yes it totally worked." He said with a smirk.

They both continued to laugh and after calming down there was a brief silence until Hiccup decided to ask something. "You know I normally don't listen to rumors, but I'm curious, are you and Snotlout a thing?" He asked.

"Oh God no, I know he likes to think we are but at best were _casual_ friends." She said.

"Oh, well I'm just asking because you two seem to hang out a lot." He said.

"Well I also hang out with the twins and Fishlegs a lot too but I'm not dating any of them." She said.

"Good point, sorry it was a stupid question." He said.

"Ah it's fine, to be fair I don't really have much interest in most of the guys in school." She said as Hiccup took a quick peek at here.

"Well do you have any interest in any of the other guys." He asked nervously, this time Astrid peeked at him.

"Now that you mention it I might have…" She started to say but then was cut off when they heard a familiar voice shout, "Hey fishbone!"

The both turned and to their mutual shock and chagrin, they saw Snotlout along with the twins and the rather confused Fishlegs were standing on the other side of the street. "Hey, what's up cuz?" He asked.

"Crap." Hiccup mumbled, "Hey Snotlout how are you doing?" Hiccup asked.

"Oh nothing much, I was just enjoying a nice day at home when I get a text that said you were with Astrid, so I decided to come down here and fix that." He said.

"Yeah." Tuffnut said.

"You got that right." Ruffnut said.

"Wait, what, you guys told me that we were going to the art festival." Fishlegs.

"Not now Fishlegs." Snotlout said, "I got to take care of this first." He said punching his palm.

"Snotlout, why don't you just leave before you embarrass yourself." Astrid said.

"Oh don't worry babe, I'll leave as soon as I take care of Hiccup here." Snotlout said.

"Snotlout, can't we just talk about this, I'm really not in the mood to deal with this." Hiccup said slightly agitated.

"Well I'm in the mood to break your mood." Snotlout said which earned him a confused look look from everyone else.

"What?" They all said in unison over his failed attempt at word play.

"You know what I mean, not to take care of business." He said as he marched across the street towards Hiccup, however Hiccup noticed something and quickly became terrified. "Snotlout look out!" He shouted.

Snotlout turned around and noticed a truck was speeding down the street, however he was too scared to move and it almost hit him until Hiccup came sprinting forward and tackled him out of the way. As the truck sped past them Hiccup and Snotlout sat up and Snotlout still had a look of shock on his face. He then slowly turned and saw Hiccup with his head down and breathing heavily. "You saved me." Snotlout said slowly.

"Yeah, well you may be a pain but you're still my cousin and I couldn't just let you get flattened." Hiccup said.

"Oh my God that was so scary." Fishlegs said in shock.

"Forget scary, that was awesome." Tuffnut said, "Yeah." Ruffnut said.

"Are you two okay." Astrid said running up to join them.

"I think so, Snotlout?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah…I'm fine…thanks." He said to Hiccup.

This threw Hiccup through bit of a loop, his cousin Snotlout was thanking him, like genuinely thanking him. "No problem Snot…no problem at all." He said still surprised.

* * *

After the shock and awe wore off, Fishlegs and the twins took Snotlout home while Hiccup decided it was best to Astrid home as well. It was early evening when they reached her front door. Astrid was about the open it but then turned to Hiccup, "You know despite almost happened, I had a good time today." She said.

"I thought so too, maybe we could do it again sometime?" Hiccup asked.

"I'd like that." Astrid said.

Hiccup smiled a little but was inwardly celebrating, however his celebration was interrupted when he felt a sharp pain in his arm. Grabbing it he looked over and saw that Astrid's hand was forming a fist and realized that she punched him. "What was that for?" He asked.

"That's for scaring me." She said.

Hiccup just looked confused but then Astrid grabbed him by the collar and gave him a quick kiss of the cheek, which led him very surprised.

"And that's for everything else." Astrid said shyly as she quickly turned around and entered her home.

Hiccup just stood there for a second, almost completely immobile until he brought his hand to his cheek. Not only did he hang with Astrid, but she _kissed_ him, Astrid Hofferson actually kissed him.

"Wow." He mouthed silently.

But then a realization struck him, something he almost completely forgot about, _"I got to get home."_ He thought to himself.

Turning around he quickly ran to his house, luckily Astrid only lived a few houses down the street from him. Reaching his front door, he opened it and made a rush for the stairs, however before he could get far he heard his father's voice.

"How was your day son?" Stoick asked.

"What?" Hiccup asked, not fully hearing the question.

"I asked how your day was?" Stoick asked.

"Oh, it was actually really good." He said.

"Ah, that's good to hear." Stoick said.

Both father and son stood in awkward silence, both unsure how to proceed next, until Hiccup decided to speak up. "Well I'm going up stairs." He said.

"Oh okay, have a good night son." Stoick said.

"You too dad." Hiccup said as continued up the steps.

When he was out of sight, Stoick peered into the living room and spotted his wife with an amused look on her face. "How was that?" He asked.

Valka shook her hand and said, "Eh." But then laughed a little bit.

Stoick shook his head but couldn't help but smile a little at his wife. Meanwhile upstairs Hiccup entered his room and jarred Toothless out of his sleep and quickly opened his laptop and brought up the code.

"I think I've finally cracked you." He said to the code.

* * *

What Hiccup didn't know was that he wasn't the only one looking at the code, with NSA headquarters, Bradley was checking over computer terminals, seeing if anyone has made any head way in finding the code, however his morale was slipping.

"We may never find this thing." He said to himself, however he heard voice call him over.

"Sir, I think you may want to see this." One of his programmers said.

Bradley quickly went over to the terminal and looked at the screen and what he saw almost made him faint. In front of him was the code that they have so feverishly been searching for, Bradley actually rubbed his eyes to make sure he was hallucinating, but it was really there.

"Quick someone call agent Phillips." He called out to everyone who was listening, "Tell him we just found what we were looking for." He said.


	7. Chapter 7

Agent Philips rushed the halls of the NSA as fast as he could, despite being a man in his 50's when push came to shove he could move as fast as a man half his age. Reaching the main doors, he quickly swiped his key card and walked into the control room where Bradley was waiting along with Stenson and Nilsson.

"Where did you find it?" He immediately asked wishing to cut right through the BS.

"It surfaced under a half hour ago sir, we immediately ran a trace and we were able to get a location." Bradley said handing a tablet over to Philips.

Philips looked at the screen and saw a marker and along with it were a pair of coordinates and a name. "Berk?" He questioned, unfamiliar with the town.

"It's a city located in southern Minnesota, the exact address is 5194 S. Hooligan Drive." Stenson said.

"Anything else you can tell me?" Philips asked.

"Yes, we were also able to get an I.D. on the computer's owner." Nilsson said as Philips scrolled through the tablet and brought a picture of Hiccup. "His name is Hiccup Haddock, age 15, his parents are Stoick Haddock and Valka Haddock nee Jorgenson, and he is currently enrolled at the local high school." She explained.

"Wow, you guys really do know everything." Stenson said.

"We're not being paid not to." Nilsson said.

"Are you sure this is the one, I mean he's only a kid." Philips said skeptically.

"Well sir, despite his age he seems to be pretty proficient with computers." Bradley said.

"You got a point there, kids today are capable of doing a lot of things." Philips said as he studied the picture for a moment.

"So how do you want to handle this sir?" Stenson asked.

"Well for starters we need to get our hands on the computer, it could be receiving the entire code and not just a fragment." Philips said.

"And what about the boy sir?" Stenson asked.

"Personally I would like to just get the computer and keep this whole thing as quiet as possible." He said looking at the tablet but had a look of uncertainty.

"But?" Nilsson asked.

"But, seeing as how he got the code, there's a high chance that he could be the only one who could give us any clue about what it is." He said, after a few more seconds he handed the tablet back to Bradley. "I want him brought in as well." He said.

"How exactly should we do that sir?" Nilsson asked.

"Contact the local authorities, tell them it's high priority, I want this done quick." Philips ordered.

"Really sir, doesn't that seem a little extreme?" Bradley asked.

"I know, but right now this is a matter of National Security and this kid seems to be a part of it so we need to treat it as such." He said as he left the room with a stone look on his face.

* * *

It was Sunday night and Hiccup was studying the code on his laptop, while he was scanning the text he was writing in a notebook next to him. On the lined paper of the notebook, he was sketching the symbols from the code, but that wasn't the only thing he was sketching, along with the symbols he had sketch of old Norse runes. After seeing the shield at the art festival yesterday, he realized why the symbols seemed so familiar to him, they bared a striking resemblance to Norse runes, and even if he wasn't sure that they were the same, he thought it would be a good place to start.

"Okay, that takes care of this line, on to the next." He said to himself, evidently tired as he checked a book on the other side of his laptop.

Now Hiccup loved a lot of things revolving around his Viking heritage, especially the mythology, in fact that's were his fascination with dragons began. He was also very interested in the language, both written and spoken, and even though he didn't really understand the runes, thanks to some help from his parents when he was a little kid, he could now speak Norse fairly well. One of the advantages to coming from a family with healthy roots to their heritage was that he didn't need to go to the library or a bookstore, since he already a few books of Norse runes, which he had on his desk as a reference.

After a few minutes of alternating between checking the screen and the book he rubbed he tried to stifle a yawn. "What do you think bud, should I call it a night?" He turned to his dog who was trying to sleep, the canine lifted his head and gave a tired look to Hiccup before laying back down. "Yeah, maybe I should get to bed." He mumbled.

However, after taking another look at the laptop, he felt the urge to keep going, at least for a little while. For Hiccup one of his dominant personality traits is that he can be very passionate about what he does, whenever he feels like he's on to something, it can be really hard for him to stop until he sees it through. As he took another gander at the screen he gradually took his pen and began to sketch in the notebook again.

* * *

Unfortunately, Hiccup wasn't the only one working on Sunday night, several miles away at the Berk Police Department headquarters, wheels were turning. Within a locker room there was a squad of officers, all of whom were putting on Kevlar and tactical gear. As they were preparing, a man who was holding papers came walking in, most of his body covered in Kevlar with the exception of his head, he was a tall man who appeared to be in his 40's with short black hair that was greying on the sides and a stern look on his face.

"Alright listen up everyone." He called out with expert authority which caused the others to immediately turning their attention to him. "As you all know we just got a report from higher up, there's a person of interest in our town and they want us to bring them in." He said.

Taking the papers in his hand he began to hand them out to his team, "This is the identity of the suspect." He said as the other officers looked at the papers and saw an image of Hiccup. "Don't be put off by his age, he's been classified as high priority." He said as he surveyed his team to make sure that they all have a picture. "Alright here's the plan, we're going to meet with patrol officers at the address, they will create a perimeter while we move in. I don't know what this kid's capable of, but I want this done quick and by the books, understood?" He asked.

"Sir yes sir!" The squad called out in unison. "Alright let's move out." He said as they all ran to the garage and boarded the SWAT truck, once they were on board, the truck sped out to the street with sirens blazing.

* * *

Meanwhile back on Hooligan Dr. a certain blonde was standing in her kitchen waiting as the microwave steadily hummed and watched as a bag of popcorn was growing. As she waited, Astrid couldn't help but think about the events of yesterday, she still couldn't believe that Snotlout almost got hit by a truck. Even though she has threatened him several times with death, seeing it almost happened came as a shock, all she can think is ' _thank God Hiccup acted when he did_.' Her mind than flashed to the lanky boy in question, to be fair she wasn't sure how the day was going to go, but up until the truck she was pleasantly surprised, Hiccup seemed to be a lot more than he would appear. Then she thought about that kiss on the cheek, she wasn't sure what she was thinking when she did it, but she didn't regret doing it. However, her thoughts were interrupted when the microwave went off and the popcorn was done. Taking the bag out she poured the contents into a bowl and walked into her living room where a raven haired girl was sitting on her couch with a DVD remote in hand.

"Okay, movies ready to go." She said as Astrid took a seat next to her.

"What movie did you pick again?" Astrid asked.

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind." She said.

The girl in question was Heather, she was one of Astrid's closest friends and even though they went to different schools, they still hang out as much as they can and tonight was their annual movie night. Every Sunday night they would get together and would alternate between who picks the movies and who's house they watch it at; tonight it was Heather's turn to pick the movie and they were watching at Astrid's house.

"I never saw that movie." Astrid said.

"It's considered one of the best science fiction films of all time." She said.

"What's it about?" Astrid asked.

"It's about people making contact with aliens, it was directed Steven Spielberg." Heather explained.

"Sounds interesting." Astrid said.

"Yeah my dad really likes it." Heather said taking some popcorn and hitting 'play' on the remote. As the movie began, Heather looked over to Astrid and decided to ask, "So how was your date with Hiccup?"

The sudden question almost made Astrid choke on the popcorn, luckily she managed to swallow it and turned to Heather. "What?!" She asked.

"You know, when you went to the art festival with Hiccup yesterday, how did it go?" She asked.

"Well it went fine, but the larger point is that it wasn't a date." Astrid said.

"Really because the two of you doing something together, forgive me but that sounds like a date to me." Heather explained.

"We were just hanging out." Astrid stated.

"I'm not judging you." Heather said raising her hands up in defense.

"Sorry for snapping, but again we were just hanging out, I mean can't tow people who happen to be the opposite gender just hang around without it meaning anything?" Astrid ask.

"Sure they can." Heather said, "But I would just like to point out that the fact that you're getting really defensive about it." She said.

"Yeah because you keep saying it was a date when it really wasn't." Astrid said.

"If you say so." Heather said, but after a few seconds she decided to poke the bear a little more. "So do you like?" She asked.

"What?" Astrid asked.

"Do you like Hiccup?" Heather asked again.

"I mean, he's a nice guy and it wouldn't really be unreasonable to say we could be friends." She explained.

"No I mean do you _like_ him?" Heather asked putting an emphasis on the word 'like' and Astrid immediately understood her tone.

"Not in that way." She said, although Heather noticed a faint redness appearing on Astrid's cheeks.

"Are you sure?" Heather asked again cocking one of her eyebrows.

Astrid was shocked by Heather's questioning, although she couldn't help but feel the heat radiating from her cheeks the more she thought about Hiccup although she did her best to deny it, she was losing. "Are you sure you want to be violently assaulted if you keep asking?" Astrid asked.

"Okay I'm dropping." Heather said.

"Good, now can we please just watch the movie?" Astrid asked.

However, as they were both about to get back to watching the film, they were roused by the sound of sirens coming from outside. "What is that?" Heather asked.

"Sounds like a siren." Astrid said.

* * *

Not too far from the house, several cars were raising down the street, although many of them were squad cars, a couple of them appeared to be black civilian vehicles but they were speeding as fast as the police cruisers. As they sped down the street they all came to a stop and formed a sort of semi-circle around the Haddock residence. Uniformed officers came out of the squad cars while men in in suits and ties came out of the black cars.

"Alright let's set up a perimeter, I don't want any bystanders past this point when the SWAT team gets here." One of the men in suits ordered.

As the officers got to work, and it didn't take too long for people to start gathering around to see what was going on. Inside the house, Stoick and Valka were relaxing in the living room, but then their peace was disrupted when they heard the sirens coming from outside. At first they thought it was going to pass them, but then they heard them from right outside and getting curious, Valka went to check the windows. "What's going on Val?" Stoick asked.

"The police are right outside." She said leaving Stoick both confused and worried.

Upstairs, Hiccup was working on the code when he heard the sirens outside, the noise also caused Toothless to bolt straight up in alarm from the noise outside. "What's going on?" Hiccup asked to himself turning away from his work.

Down the street, Astrid and Heather came running outside to see what was going on and were shocked at the scene before them. "Astrid." They heard a voice say.

Turning around, the girls saw Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the twins running up the sidewalk. "What's going on, why are the police here?" Fishlegs asked in obvious worry.

"I don't know, but they're all in front of Hiccup's house." Astrid said.

Their attention was then stolen by the sight of a SWAT truck speeding past them and coming to a stop in front of the house. "Is that a SWAT team?" Snotlout asked wide-eyed.

"Awesome." Tuffnut exclaimed which earned him a weird look from the rest of the group. "What?" He asked.

As soon as the truck came to a stop, the back opened and a squad of people came out in full tactical gear, weapons at the ready. "Move, Move, Move!" The leader ordered.

The SWAT team rushed towards the front door, meanwhile inside the house, Valka was still looking out the window and Stoick was standing behind her with a worried look on his face. "What's happening now?" He asked.

But before Valka could answer, the front door burst open and the SWAT team came rushing in, "What the hell!" Stoick yelled.

"Hands up and no sudden movements." One of the SWAT members ordered while his gun was raised.

Stoick and Valka did as they were told and two other SWAT members escorted them out of the house, as they did this another member came out of the kitchen. "Nothing here sir." He said.

"Alright upstairs." The leader ordered as he and the others marched up the steps.

While inside his room, Hiccup heard the commotion downstairs and immediately became worried about his parents and he could hear the heavy footsteps coming up the steps. "Oh god, oh god, oh god." He said to himself.

Before he could do anything else, his door was kicked open, causing him to shield his eyes from any debris. The SWAT team came in, but Toothless jumped in between them and Hiccup and growled at them, "We got a dog." The leader said.

"On it." One of the others said, he then took out a tranquilizer gun and shot at Toothless, the dart hit him in the neck and after a few seconds he fell to the ground unconscious. "Canine is down." He said.

Hiccup uncovered his eyes and was completely shocked to see his dog on the ground with a dart sticking out of his neck. "Toothless!" He shouted.

"Hiccup Haddock, you are under arrest." The leader said to him.

"What?!" Hiccup asked in shock.

Hiccup however did not get an answer because as soon as the leader said that, he the others immediately grabbed Hiccup, forced him to the wall, placed his hands behind his back and placed a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. "Ah, what are you doing?" Hiccup asked in obvious pain.

but again he did not get answer as he was then forced out of his room and down the stairs. As that was happening, some of the SWAT members grabbed Hiccup's laptop, notebook and texts and then placed them into large evidence bags.

* * *

Outside, the scene was fairly under control, there were still a bunch of people gathered around to see what was going on, but they were kept at a good distance by the police. Astrid and the rest of the group came over to get a better look and saw both Stoick and Valka standing on their front lawn with police questioning them, though it seemed obvious that they had no idea what was going. However, they immediately turned their attention to the sight of Hiccup being escorted out of the house in handcuffs. This came to a shock to them, but Astrid took one look at Hiccup and noticed that his face had a look of both terror and confusion. When Hiccup passed his parents, they both were in a state of shock, but then Stoick snapped out of his stupor.

"Wait, why are you arresting my son?!" He demanded.

"He didn't do anything wrong." Valka said, but the officers paid no attention to either of them.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" He shouted as he tried to approach them but was swiftly stopped by other officers.

Both parents could only watch as their son was taken before one of the men in suits, he went over to his car and opened the back right door. The SWAT leader took Hiccup and forced him into the car and that was all they could see of Hiccup before the door was closed. The suited man then entered the driver's side, the car started, pulled out and then sped down the street away from the bewildered spectators.


	8. Chapter 8

It has _not_ been a good 36 hours for Hiccup, or least that's how long he thinks it's been, but let's be honest it's hard to keep track of time when you get dragged out of your house by a SWAT team, driven to the airport and forced onto a cargo plane heading to who knows where. Hiccup groggily observed his surroundings, after taking off he passed out for what seemed like a few hours and woke up hoping it was a dream.

' _where the heck am I going?'_ He asked himself in some futile attempt to get answers as he became more awake and saw that he was still in the cargo plane.

He was currently sitting in a chair next to the wall which was surprisingly comfortable as he nervously rubbed his hand on his leg, unfortunately he could only use one hand because the other was handcuffed to the chair. Not six feet in front of him was a man sitting across staring at him, taking note of his attire Hiccup saw that he was wearing Air Force fatigues.

' _Okay, I'm in a military plane with air force guys, this is getting weird.'_ He thought as he continued to scan the room and noticed that another man was sitting with his back to them a few feet away and was working on a laptop. After a few minutes of thought Hiccup decided to say something.

"Um excuse me." He said to the man across from him, "Do you know what's going on, why am I here?" He asked. However, the man continued to look at him without saying a word.

"Alright you can't tell me that, I guess I can understand but can you tell me where this plane is going?" He asked and he got no response and after a brief pause he decided to go for broke, "Okay can you at least tell me how long we're going to be on this plane?" He asked and still nothing but a hard stare. "Yeah should have known." Hiccup sighed.

Averting his attention away from the man, Hiccup began to wonder why exactly he was there but more importantly at the moment where was he going.

* * *

 _Edwards Air Force Base-Southern California-1300 hours_

It was a hot day on Edwards Air Force Base, the sun hung high in the sky as a transport helicopter flew overhead, it then tilted as it made its descent towards an awaiting helipad. Once it fully landed, the doors opened and Agent Phillips stepped out, within a few seconds he was accompanied by agents Stenson and Nilsson as well as Bradley. As Phillips walked away from the helicopter he saw a man waiting for him, he was about half a foot taller than he was, African American and he wore fatigues accommodated by a silver eagle insignia.

"Colonel Shaw." Phillips said extending his hand as he approached him.

"Agent Phillips, glad you could make it." The Colonel said shaking Phillip's hand and turned his attention to the others. "Well everyone, welcome to Edwards Air Force Base." He greeted.

"Wait, Edwards Air Force Base?" Bradley asked as everyone looked at him, "You mean we're standing in the actual Area 51?" He asked with an almost fan boy like enthusiasm.

"Actually that's a common misconception, you see Area 51 really refers to Homey Airport in Nevada, but it is a detachment of this facility so pretty close." Shaw said at which point everyone turned their attention to him, "This comes up more than you think." He said as he signaled the group to follow him.

"I read your report, so you found the signal?" Shaw asked as they were walking, "Yes Colonel and we isolated the laptop it was founded on, now we're just hoping that it doesn't just disappear again?" Phillips explained.

"Well I can guarantee that my top people will try to find out what it is exactly." Shaw explained as they arrived and entered a nearby building, "I also understand you've apprehended the young man who acquired the signal?" He asked.

"Indeed, we're bringing him in for questioning, we're hoping that he might know something about what we're dealing with." Phillips said.

* * *

Meanwhile back on the plane, Hiccup was still sitting in the chair, over the past few hours he had go from worried to slightly bored, just passing the time however he can. As he looked around the interior for what seemed like the hundredth time, he noticed something, On the guards' belt was a satellite phone, and an idea immediately popped up in Hiccup's head. _'It's a long shot but it's the best option I got.'_ He thought.

"Excuse me." He said getting the guards attention, "I need to go to the bathroom." He said, the guard in turn just gave him a look, "Please, I really need to go, but hey I'm okay to just piss my pants." He said.

The guard looked at him for a moment, and Hiccup became worried that he wouldn't by it, but luckily the guard stood up and removed the handcuffs from Hiccup's wrist. After Hiccup stood up the guard began to escort him to the bathroom, _'Alright, now I need to find a way to get that phone.'_ He said to himself.

Just then as if help from above, the plane experienced a sudden hit of turbulence that caused it to shake, using this opportunity, Hiccup 'accidently' fell over and the guard caught him as the turbulence subsided. "Sorry about that, I can be a little clumsy." He said with a nervous smile, the guard didn't respond and continued to escort Hiccup to the lavatory. Once inside the small room, the guard closed to door as Hiccup faced the toilet, quickly turning his head to check, Hiccup pulled out the phone he managed to left from the guard. He began dialing his home phone number and he then held it to his ear where he could hear it ringing.

"Come on pick up, pick up, pick up!" He whispered, unfortunately all he got was the voice mail, "Dammit." He quietly cursed.

Outside the door, the guard stood and waited, but then one of the other guards came over to him, "Hey Simmons, where's the kid?" He asked.

"He's in the john." Simmons said which made the the guard give him a questioning look. "Aren't you worried that he'll try to escape?" He asked.

"Are you kidding me, how's he going to do that, I'm standing in front of the only door of a bathroom on a plane that's over 5 miles in the air, how could he possibly escape?" Simmons asked irritated.

"Okay but what if he tries to call for help?" The other guard asked.

"And how exactly is he…" He trailed as he absent-mindedly reached for his sat phone, "going to do…" He started to get nervous when he couldn't feel anything, "that?" He said looking down and saw no phone quickly realized that it wasn't there. "Oh crap." He said turning towards the door and started banging on it, "Hey open this door!" He commanded.

Hiccup heard him pounding and knew that he didn't have a lot of time, so he got back on the phone and started to speak, "Mom, Dad, it's me Hiccup, now listen…" He started his message, meanwhile outside, Simmons continued to pound on the door, "That's it." He said as he rammed the door with his shoulder.

Inside Hiccup was wrapping up his message, "I have to go, I love you both." He almost strained those last words out as the door burst open, the force making Hiccup sit on the toilet, looking up he saw a not too happy guard glaring at him, "Umm, occupied." He said with a nervous chuckle.

Guard promptly grabbed Hiccup and confiscated the phone from him as he forced him back to his original spot, but as they placed the cuffs back on Hiccup thought to himself, _'I hope my parents get the message.'_


	9. Chapter 9

Everything was quiet for Stoick, he just silently sat in place as he gazed at the bottle of beer in his hand as if it was going to give him answers to everything that had just happened to him and his family. His mind was still reeling over the previous series of events and looking back at them it seemed so surreal, however, he was taken out of his thoughts when a door was opened and Gobber came walking in, a bag of groceries in his hands.

"Hey, I'm back." He said coming into the kitchen where Stoick was sitting.

After Hiccup was arrested, Stoick and Valka sprang into action, immediately going to the police station for any information that they could get on what was happening to their son, however all they got was the stone wall. Despite that they didn't stop, from there they tried everything that they could think of to get answers, lucky for them they had the advantage of Stoick having friends in the federal government, but even that wasn't enough. Now Stoick was sitting trying to think but at the moment there didn't seem to be anything that he could do but he tried to stay strong for Valka's sake.

"Stoick…Stoick…are you there man?" Gobber said snapping his fingers in his large friend's face and it seemed to work as Stoick shook his head and stared at Gobber.

"Oh Gobber, sorry I didn't hear you come in." Stoick said.

"I can see that." Gobber said taking a seat on the left side of Stoick. "I haven't seen you this deep in thought since that time we saw the _Usual Suspects_." Gobber said.

"Hey, I didn't see that coming all right." Stoick said but stopped himself from losing focus on the matter at hand. "Sorry, I'm just worried is all, I have no idea what happened to my son and no matter what I've tried I can't seem to get answers."

"I know Stoick, I'm worried about him too but right now the best thing we can do is hope that he's okay." Gobber explained.

"Maybe." Stoick sighed. "By the way, I wanted to thank you again for letting me and Val stay here."

After the incident, Stoick and Valka didn't feel comfortable with sleeping with their own home so Gobber had offered to let them stay with him until they felt ready to move back in and it has been a fairly smooth transition.

"Oh don't worry 'bout it, you two can stay here as long as you need." Gobber said.

Just then Stoick heard someone coming down the stairs, looking over he saw his wife entering the living room and she looked absolutely tired, obviously this incident has been very rough on her. Without a word Stoick stood up and made his way over to Valka and placed him large hands on her shoulders.

"How are you feeling?" He asked with concern in his eyes.

"Better than yesterday, but not by much." She said.

Looking at her Stoick took in her appearance, her hair was a mess, she had bags under her eyes, essentially her whole demeanor was unlike her normal lively self, but Stoick knew that she was having a very hard time right now, in fact she spent all morning in bed.

"Do you need anything?" Stoick asked.

"Yes, I want my baby back." She said as tears started to well in her eyes.

Stoick instinctively wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close as she tried to suppress her sobs but she was failing. All Stoick could do was rub her back in a comforting motion while trying to give assurance.

"It's going to be okay Val." He said.

After a few minutes Valka's sobs quieted and she pulled back, this allowed Stoick to look at her in the eyes with a determined look on his face. "Listen, I don't know what's going on, but what I do know is that I am not going to stop until we find our son." He said.

His words seemed to have had the desired effect as Valka steeled herself and returned Stoick's look. "You're right Stoick, I'm going to stop either." She said.

"That's my girl." Stoick smiled as he kissed her forehead.

"Umm, are you two done?" Gobber asked.

"Sorry." They both said in unison which made them chuckle.

* * *

As the two of them were dealing with the situation, the third member of the Haddock family was not doing any better than he was nearly a day ago. After trying to call home, Hiccup was handcuffed back in his seat, but this time he had three Airmen standing guard. They had not taken their eyes of him since they landed to refuel and that was around six hours ago, granted Hiccup didn't have a good sense of time because there was no clock and he couldn't look outside. At first it was uncomfortable but after a while he just got used to it, not like there was anything that he could do to stop them, he tried to cut the tension by starting a conversation but it became pretty evident that they were not interested in talking.

" _Gods this is awkward; I wonder how much longer this ride's going to be."_ Hiccup thought to himself.

As if on cue he felt the plane rumble which was followed by a feeling of force rushing from his feet to his head, like being on an elevator going down, and based that Hiccup came to one conclusion. _"We're landing, but where?"_

On the outside it the sky was a dark purple with faint blues near the horizon, an indicator that it was most likely late evening but that didn't matter at Edwards Air Force Base, because at that moment, personnel were scrambling as they prepared for the C-130 to make it's landing. Near the runway, Agent Philips and Colonel Shaw were waiting patiently for their special 'guest'.

"All this for one kid, they don't teach this stuff in the academy." Shaw said looking around.

"This is obviously unorthodox but right now that's the best we can do in a situation like this." Philips said.

* * *

Both men watched as the plane skidded across the runway until it came to a completely stop, inside the aircraft Hiccup was becoming increasing anxious about what to expect and his anxiety continued to grow as the cargo door opened and he was un-cuffed from the seat. Standing up he was escorted out of the plane by the guards, upon exiting the plane he was shocked to see where he was and that's no small feat compared to what he had gone through, at this moment he was standing in the middle of a military base, making both excited as well as terrified. He didn't have to time to register where he was when a guard suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder and made him walk forward and as they walked Hiccup got a good look around and saw troops moving, each with their own specific purpose to fulfill, but he had a hunch that they were all related to his presence in some way or another just by the look of things.

"Okay Hiccup, whatever you do, try not to panic." He said to himself, although he could already feel as though he was going to break that promise.

After a few minutes of walking, Hiccup spotted two older men looking at him, one was wearing Air Force fatigues while the other was wearing a black suit and tie, this made Hiccup even more confused as to what was going on. When they got close enough the two men approached him and the one wearing the fatigues came to a stop right in front of him. Hiccup looked up at the figure and though he was a little over six feet, he looked like a skyscraper in Hiccup's eyes with the way he stood and looked down at him.

"Hiccup Haddock," He spoke with a tone that could be described as authority laced with hospitality. "Welcome to Edwards Air Force Base, I hope you like the amenities, you might be here a while." He said.


End file.
